Murder cyotes and the FBI
by Estel-girl
Summary: Perri Reed Tells her daughter how she met Carl Kolchak


_**Murder, Coyotes, and the F.B.I.**_

"It all started with ------------, she had been murdered. It was _my_ job as the head crime reporter to follow the story, but _someone_ beat me to it. When I arrived at the crime scene I was told that there was already a reporter from my paper there. I found the reporter in the garage and met Carl Kolchak for the first time. Looking back on it now I really should have simply walked away and spared myself a lot of headaches."

"Hey!" came an indignant cry from behind her, Perri smiled as the voice continued to mutter things under its breath.

"Carl, can I please finish?" she asked with a pointed glare. Carl raised his hands in surrender. "Anyway as I was saying, I met the reporter in the garage and that's when the confusion started. He claimed that he had been assigned the story and that he had secret sources that had told him things that the police wouldn't figure out until days later. After Tony Vinchenzo, the editor told Carl to back off because the story was mine, which he never did by the way." Carl smiled at this while Perri gave him a look. "So because he wouldn't tell me where he was getting his information I decided to do a little investigating, I found out that Carl Kolchak was under investigation by agent Fain of the F.B.I. for murder, but no one else believed that he had done it." At the mention of the man's name Carl's eyes had darkened in anger. Perri looked at him concerned before continuing. "It turned out that he was the murderer, but we didn't know that then. So after Fain had questioned Carl about his interest in this murder I asked him about it. He told me that he was innocent and he also told me about the agent's vendetta against him. I didn't believe him until I was chased by this dog creature, but Carl hit it with car before it bit me. It was a horrible sight, it looked like it had been turned inside out and then barbequed. A few hours later we were waiting outside animal control waiting to find out just what had attacked us. The doctor came out accompanied by agent Fain. The doctor told us that it had been a coyote, despite Jain's loud protests. Kolchak kept his eyes glued on Fain and asked for the doctor to release to release so that it could be confirmed at an independent lab. This was when I started to believe Carl's conspiracy theories. Agent Fain then told us that he had had the body destroyed and cremated. Now I was beginning to understand that there was something very wrong about that dog and about the whole situation."

"Mommy?" asked the voice of a little girl. "What's cre…crematered?" Perri thought for a minute about how to best explain.

"Cremated," said Carl "means that he turned to dust and blew away." Perri smiled, a happy twist on a gruesome concept that children shouldn't know about.

"Oh ok" said the little girl. She looked back at her mother, waiting for her to continue with the story. Perri smiled at her daughter and cleared her throat before beginning again.

"Agent Fain became the least of our worries, because the little girl, Julie, was still missing. It was Jain who figured out where she could be, the caves. By the time we got there the sun had already set and it was pitch black. Carl drove his car into the cave so that we could see using the headlights, then from the trunk of his car he got three flashlights and two electric cattle prods." She stopped there and turned to Carl. "I could never figure out why you had those anyway" she said. Carl just smiled and shrugged. Perri shook her head and let it slide. "We traveled through the caves for about five minutes before we heard the little girl crying, we also heard a growling noise like a dog only bigger. We came to an opening only big enough for one person to crawl through, so Carl crawled through and onto a small ledge on the other side. Beneath him was a deep hole, so deep you couldn't see the bottom. Above him on the other side of the hole was Julie. She was sitting on a ledge even smaller than the one Carl was on. She was dirty, crying, and she had no idea where she was or how she had gotten there. Outside the opening Jain and I heard the growling noise get louder and closer. Jain yelled for Kolchak to hurry but he couldn't reach Julie, she would have to jump. She did and Carl caught her. As we raced through the caves the sound of something chasing us grew louder and louder. We reached the edge of the cave and Carl gave me a boost up before handing me Julie and climbing up himself. Jain was next, he had gotten one leg up when he was grabbed from behind by one of the creatures and pulled backwards, but Carl grabbed his arm and cracked his flashlight over the thing's head. The dog creature let go of Jain and we pulled him up. We sprinted to the car and got in. suddenly the creature launched itself at the windshield, shattering it. We drove out of the cave as fast as we could and sped away along the highway. The next day Carl wrote a story saying that the little girl had been found, but with no mention of the strange dog creatures we had encountered. When I asked him about it he told me that if he had written the truth everyone would just think he was crazy. I thought about this and decided that he was right." She smiled and looked at her daughter, who was yawning. "The end" she said. Her daughter smiled through her yawn.

"I like that story," she said "it's interesting." Perri smiled and shook her head, Danielle had inherited her father's love for the unexplainable.

"Ok," said Carl, picking her up "I think it's time for someone to go to bed." Perri watched as Danni yawned again and snuggled into Carl's shoulder.

"Ok Daddy" she said practically asleep in her father's arms. Carl smiled at his little girl and waited as Perri slowly got up from the sofa. It was hard since she was nine months pregnant. She watched as Carl shifted Danni to one arm so he could help her up. Later after Danni had been tucked in and Carl and Perri were just about to go to sleep Perri asked.

"So why did you have those things anyway?" Carl smiled at his wife and kissed her forehead.

"That," he said "is tomorrow night's story." Perri smiled and shook her head. He was so childish sometimes, but that was just one of the countless reasons why she loved him. She ran a hand over his messy brown hair.

"You really are crazy sometimes" she said smiling. Carl cracked a huge grin at this and laughed. He put his arms around his wife, as they snuggled closer together.

"I really don't think that there is a single sane person in the world" he said closing his eyes. Perri just smiled as she drifted off into dreamland. She didn't get much sleep because she was suddenly awakened several hours later with a sharp pain in her stomach. Her mind came screaming awake as she realized what was happening. Wincing as she sat up, she turned and lightly shook her husband.

"Carl" she said. This of course did nothing except make him roll over. Perri sigh in annoyance. She shook him again, harder this time. "Whatever happened to the night stalker who ran on one hour of sleep?" she asked herself. Shaking him still harder she yelled "Carl!" This finally woke him up. He pulled his head out from under the pillow and looked around groggily, before he spotted his wife holding her stomach and wincing. It took a second for what was happening to click in his brain.

"Oh" he said before reality hit him. "OH!" but before he could jump up his legs got tangled in this sheets and he fell off the bed. "Oof" came a muffled voice from the floor. Perri laughed, but that only made the pain worse.

"Owe" she said, gritting her teeth. "Don't make me laugh." She watched as Carl around the room, he had been like this when Danni was born too, only worse.

Several hours later a very tired Perri lay on a hospital bed. Carl sat next to the bed on a plastic chair, his hand still held his wife's and he was pretty sure that at least two of his fingers were broken. Perri sighed and looked down at the small white bundle in her arms. The door behind Carl opened and the two proud new parents turned to look at the two figures that had just entered the room. The much shorter figure ran up to the bed and hugged her mother's arm, before turning to sit on her father's lap. Perri smiled at her daughter and shifted the bundle in her arms. Instantly it began to stir and kick. Danni leaned forward curiously. Perri shifted the blankets again so that her daughter could see the tan face and tuft of dark brown hair of her new baby brother.

"Danni," she said "I'd like you to meet your brother James." Carl smiled as he watched as his daughter gently shook his newborn son's tiny hand. After a moment he looked again just to be sure. No there was nothing, no mark on his son's wrist. He came back to reality as he heard his daughter ask Perri to tell her the story of how her parents had met again and smiled when he heard his wife start with,

"Once upon a time…"

THE END


End file.
